


Love Is Closer Than You Think

by LinaGalin



Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: M/M, Nagron
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-07 00:37:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinaGalin/pseuds/LinaGalin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. An unfortunate turn of events brings Agron and Nasir closer. A dash of pure Nagron love with a splash of the somewhat unexplored Duro/Chadara.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Is Closer Than You Think

Nasir was just about to head out when he heard a knock on the door. Grumbling he pulled on a sweatshirt and opened to see who it was. Unsurprisingly, he was greeted with an arched dirty blonde eye brow and a smug smirk on pink shiny lips.

“Chadara”, he said in dull acknowledgment. Closing the door, he walked down the alley to his car, a furious golden head following close behind him. 

“Hey, what’s with the attitude, Nas? You’re the one who didn’t pick up your phone and leave me hanging for an hour when you know I need a favor as soon as fucking possible?” Chadara fumed long hair falling out of her bun as she tried to catch up with Nasir. Suddenly, he stopped and turned around, making her to almost run into him.   
“Oh right and what favor would that be, Char? Picking you up at some ungodly hour when you’re pissed as fuck from some asshole’s dump?” he yelled, seeing a hurt look cross her face, disappearing as quickly as a red spark. “Excuse me for not volunteering to offer my services,” he said turning back to his car. She grabbed his arm and turned him back to look at her, this time something else burning in her eyes that he couldn’t quite identify.

“Who are you to talk, Tiberius?” she spat the name, like venom. “How many times have I had to wrest horny pricks trying to thrust against your leg, like rabid dogs? At least I didn’t change my name to do what I want”. He twisted his arm free of her hold stepping away from her. She sighed and said more calmly, “Look, I wasn’t going to ask you anything like that,” she looked at him apologetically reaching for his arm again. He didn’t flinch, but he didn’t welcome the touch either. “I haven’t been doing anything like that for a long time; maybe if you had called every once in a while, you would have known that”.

He shook his head smiling despite himself. He gestured with his head to indicate for her to get in the car. She smiled and went around to the other side. As he was unlocking it, he saw two men walking out of the house next door. They were both huge, the first darker haired one apparently was just saying something funny because the other lighter-haired one was laughing and pulling him in a one-armed hug. Nasir knew of the brothers, yet they had never actually exchanged words. As they approached, green eyes fell on him and Nasir felt a lick of adrenaline course through his stomach. He may have lived in the neighborhood only for a while, but he wasn’t blind. Agron, as he knew him to be called, was anything but unnoticeable. Dimples showing through his smile made Nasir stare at him a little harder than he intended. Agron, it seemed, enjoyed the attention because he pulled his brother closer to where the two stood.

“Hello,” Agron said as they approached, never taking his eyes off Nasir. “I don’t think I properly welcomed you to the neighborhood. My name’s Agron,” he said smiling that irresistible smile again, catching Nasir off guard. He reached out to shake his hand and Nasir had to mentally shake himself off a little to take it. The black haired brother looked from one to the other trying to conceal a grin. “And what do they call you?” Agron asked amused by Nasir’s deer-caught-in-headlights look. 

Chadara walked over from the other side of the car, pushing Nasir to the side with her bum and smiling. “He’s called Nasir. He’s playing a little hard to get at the moment, don’t mind him,” she said winking at an outraged Nasir. Reaching out her hand and looking at the black-haired brother up and down, she said “I’m Chadara, a pleasure to meet you”. Duro or so he would have said if he wasn’t staring open-mouthed at her, shook her hand slowly not managing to utter a single word. It was Agron’s turn to grin at his brother and say, “Well, Chadara, it seems we’re the only ones who can talk next to these two,” he laughed and Chadara smiled coyly at him looking back at Duro’s flushed face. “Yeah, while it’s lovely chatting to both of you and absolutely lovely to meet you,” she purred, “we have some urgent business to attend to”. 

Agron looked a little disappointed, but smiled all the same trying to win a word out of her silent, but incredibly tempting companion. Nasir seemed to regain sense under his gaze. “It was really good to meet you both and thanks for the welcome”, he said smiling genuinely for the first time. Agron was staring at him somewhat unblinkingly, lowering his eyes to his lips for a part of a second making Nasir flush. 

“Maybe we could hang out sometime,” Agron offered starting to walk away looking at his brother pointedly who didn’t seem like he was going to move anytime soon. Chadara curled a few stray hairs behind her ear. “We’d love to,” she said as she passed between the brothers, biting her lip as she looked back at Duro on the walk to the other side of the car. 

“Yeah we would,” Nasir agreed having a hard time looking away from Agron’s gaze, trying to put in the key a little to the right of the lock. Agron laughed and pushed Duro ahead of him, throwing a lingering smile back at Nasir. The dark skinned man exhaled deeply and finally managed to unlock the car and get in. Chadara began talking as soon as he closed the door:

“You dog, Nas! Why didn’t you tell me you have two of the hottest hunks on the planet in your backyard?” she squealed on the seat next to him.

“Because I knew your exact reaction!” Nasir replied loudly, trying to calm himself down. “‘He’s playing a little hard to get’? What possessed you to say that?”

“Oh c’mon, Nas,” Chadara dismissed pulling her hair out of the bun. “At least I said something! A sheep would have been more vocal than you”.

“Shut up,” Nasir answered under his breath putting the key in the ignition. Chadara laughed and shifted closer whispering next to his cheek, “He couldn’t take his eyes off you, though, could he?” she smiled wickedly.

Nasir simply looked back to drive the car out of the parking lot and refused to admit the blush upon his cheek.

 

Nasir pulled the car over in a suspicious, to say the least, part of town, just a few hundred feet from a club, which looked like it belonged to a list of places that should to be shut down. Blaring some hellish music to a group of teenagers gathered outside to smoke, the place smelled of underage drinking a mile away. Turning to Chadara, whose face had a bluish tint from the lights, Nasir enquired rather harshly, “What in the bleeding hell are we doing here, Char?”

She, however, didn’t seem fazed by his tone and kept looking straight ahead with a glazed look in her eyes. “A friend of mine is in there. She’s in some serious shit,” she looked at Nasir. “Remember when we used to work at that club, when that prick Aryus kept giving you some fucked up shit to do, like chat with that guy, serve that table specifically, wear those clothes when you’re doing your Friday shift? And you know Fridays were the worst,” Chadara had a fierce look in her eyes and despite himself Nasir felt the sting of those memories aching like an old wound. “For me, he reserved the best ones, of couse,” Chadara continued bitterly, “giving lap-dances and obeying their every command wasn’t what I hated the most, though. It was pretending to laugh at their stupid jokes, making up ways to compliment them when all I wanted was to be as far away from them as possible. It’s like I allowed them to control my mind as well as my body.”

Nasir reached out to touch her hands wrapped in a ball in her lap. “All that is over, Char,” he said as softly as he could. “We put that part of our lives behind us and it’s never going to happen again”.

“It will happen again to Mira,” Chadara stated, her voice trembling, “unless we do something about it”. Her eyes were boring into Nasir’s leaving him no other choice, but to nod and get out of the car.

 

The bar was crowded with young women sipping way too eagerly at their drinks and young men standing around them staring openly. It made Nasir sick to remember how he used to be stared at like that. It was nothing like the way Agron had been gazing at him, with such obvious admiration it made him burn pleasantly just thinking about it. No, their gazes used to make chills go down his back, like he was the prey of a very hungry pack of wolves. He saw Mira standing behind the bar serving drink after drink and he thought he saw the same downcast look he used whenever he felt unwanted eyes on his skin. He had never met her personally, but he’d picked Chadara up dozens of times when she was returning from a party with her. He had no other opinion of Mira apart from the fact that she was important to Chadara. Just as they approached the bar, an older guy who seemed like the owner of the place leaned down to whisper something in Mira’s ear, a slimy smile on his face. Mira kept looking down and nodded, turning to lift the barrier of the bar and go to a table with a request no doubt. Chadara and Nasir were on her before she could cross the walkway, however, and they pulled her to the side and in the quietest corner of the club they could find. She seemed startled at first, but when she saw Chadara, she relaxed significantly.

“What are you doing here, Char?” she yelled over the loud music. Now that Nasir had a chance to look at her more closely, he couldn’t help but notice how on edge she seemed.  
“What are you doing here, Mira?” Chadara challenged. “You said last week that you’d leave this fucking dump!”

Mira looked to the floor and tried to walk past them, but Chadara held her back. “You deserve better than this”, his friend implored touching Mira’s cheek gently. Suddenly, Mira’s shoulders started to shake and she bit her lip trying to conceal it was trembling. Sobbing, she looked at Chadara like she was seeing her for the first time. Wiping the tears from her eyes fiercely, Mira said “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Smiling in relief, Chadara took her hand and starting leading them out of the club, pushing grinding couples out of her way. Just as they were out and heading down to the car, they heard someone yelling behind them:

“Mira! Where the hell do you think you’re going?” the man was thin, average height with grayish and receding hair, but you could tell he might have been handsome once. “Your shift has not yet ended!”

Turning around, Mira looked at him with her chin held high and a determined note to her voice, “It has ended for me, Batiatus. Along with everything else that bound me to this place”.

Laughing cruelly, as though what she said was the best joke he’d ever heard, Batiatus mocked, “You think you’re free to go as you please, you little slut?” The laughing note of his voice turned to iced anger. “I am the one who calls the shots around here and until you’ve paid off all that you owe me, you will do as I fucking command!” He gestured towards one dark-skinned, bearded man standing on the side of the club with a black t-shirt, pulled tight on his muscled arms. Another bald-headed one joined him at his other side. “Ashur,” Batiatus called, which made the dark-skinned man smirk and purr in a voice as smooth as silk “Yes, boss?”

“Make sure she understands where she truly stands,” Batiatus said looking at Mira like a stain on the underside of his shoe, after which he turned to go back in the club. The two well-built men stood there smiling at them until Chadara yelled “Run!” like a mad woman and darted in direction of the car. Nasir was right behind her, Mira close by his side screaming “No time!” They headed off down the street running as fast as they could. They could hear the loud footsteps of their chasers right at their necks and they knew that if they only stopped for a beat, they will be onto them. Turning corners wherever they could, upturning trashcans to slow the two men down, they ran like they had never run before. Nasir was starting to get out of breath and as he looked behind him Mira and Chadara seemed on the verge of their last bits of strength as well. He racked his brains trying to think of some way to escape or hide, but all he felt was the loud pounding of his pulse in his ears. When he turned back to see how far Ashur and the other guy were behind them, he didn’t look at where he was going and suddenly he found himself smashing into a wall of warm and hard flesh. 

The next thing he felt was the asphalt tearing at his back as he tumbled to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He heard Chadara screaming behind him and then he was pulled off the ground by two strong, but careful arms. As he looked up he saw green eyes and dimples and he gulped.

“Woah, where are you guys off to in such a hurry?” Agron said looking like he was incredibly pleased to see Nasir despite the whole collision. Duro was at his side with a confused look on his face, which quickly turned to flustered when he saw Chadara. They were both wearing black sweaters and pants, making them almost fuse with the dark background of the alley. Of course, Nasir thought, Agron could never not stand out no matter how hard he tried.

“Help us!” Nasir yelled without thinking and out of breath. At Agron’s concerned look, he only managed “They’re after us!” before his words were drowned by the sound of Ashur and his follower stopping abruptly where their group was standing. Ashur was breathing hard, but he still managed to smirk smugly as he walked slowly over to them. Mira and Chadara immediately went closer to Agron and Duro’s side. Chadara touched Duro’s upper arm her eyes scared and imploring. He looked at Agron and they both walked over to Ashur meeting him halfway. The brothers stood as an impassible wall and Ashur was forced to take a half step back. 

“I advise you to step away from what does not concern you,” he said in that throaty voice of his. Agron scanned his body up and down as though analyzing him. 

“And who are you to offer such advice, Ashur?” he said in an icy tone.

“We know your track record, you little scumbag. Don’t talk to me about what I can and can’t do,” Duro spat, pushing Ashur back down the alley. 

“It is not my words you should heed,” Ashur continued switching his gaze from one brother to the next, “but Batiatus’. You know how very angry he gets when he doesn’t get what he wants”. He smiled knowingly staring behind Agron at Nasir. Narrowing his eyes, Agron grabbed Ashur by the T-shirt and Nasir was surprised to hear the menace dripping from his voice.

“You tell Batiatus, like the good little dog you are, that if he tries to hurt any of his staff again, we will be raiding his shithole of a club again,” Agron threatened. “And this time, he won’t get away with only a warrant”.

Ashur laughed despite being held up like a defenseless pup. “You think you have the power to threaten him? You know he holds all of fucking Capua in the palm of his hand!” he screamed as he pushed himself off of Agron’s tight hold.

Duro stepped in bringing his face almost nose to nose with Ashur’s. “And what do you hold this night, Ashur?” he demanded dangerously pushing the Syrian away with his forehead, like an angry buck. “If you know what’s good for you, you and your friend will get as far away from here before we beat the shit out of both of you!” he made as though to attack them, but Agron held him back not taking his eyes away from Ashur.

Nasir saw something flash behind Ashur’s eyes, but it quickly disappeared and he lifted his hands in surrender with a forced smile.

“I know when I am outnumbered,” he said as though in jest, “but know that this is not over, lieutenant,” he spoke the word in mocking that elicited a growl from Agron. “Batiatus always gets what he wants sooner or later,” Ashur accentuated on the last part looking over at Mira. The hatred was evident in her eyes, like a roaring fire. Ashur and his follower turned around and soon were lost in the shadows of the alley.

Crying out in relief, Chadara threw herself in Duro’s arms sobbing and murmuring thank you’s all over his shoulder. He seemed a little taken aback, but then he smiled and hugged her close to him, caressing her golden head. Agron had a similar affectionate look as he gazed at Nasir smiling in reassurance. Nasir, however, took Mira’s hand giving it a reassuring squeeze as she seemed the one who needed it the most. She turned to Agron tears of gratitude shining in her eyes.

“Can we get the hell out of here?” Chadara asked sobbingly, looking up from Duro’s chest. Agron smiled and looked back at Nasir, “I know someplace we could go”.  
Nasir had never felt in safer company.

Walking a few blocks down the alley, they came up to big grayish building, which seemed to fit in with the line of identical, unremarkable looking houses around it.   
“I didn’t know there was a police station in this area,” Nasir said as he looked up at the sign on top of the structure.

“I don’t think you know of anything that is in this area”, Chadara chimed in laughingly from behind him, her arm still wrapped around Duro’s back. He didn’t seem to mind, his own draped around her shoulder. Nasir shook his head following Agron inside. 

There was only one light on in the large room full of benches and chairs next to the walls with only one big desk at the right corner. A man was sitting behind it, a light by his side falling on open files and documents scattered all over the place. He looked up when the door opened and Nasir found himself instantly reassured by his presence.

“What have you been up to again, Agron?” the man asked with a smile as he watched the line of people following behind him.

“Oh, you know, the usual, saving the day, changing lives,” Agron replied jokingly. His smile faltered as he continued, “Batiatus was being a huge pain in the ass again”. Spartacus stood up and walked over to the group. Mira smiled unsurely up at him. 

“Has he hurt you?” Spartacus asked her, concern etched in his features. Mira’s eyes widened and she looked down shaking her head.

“My name is Spartacus”, the man said reassuringly. “I’m the Chief of Police here and we’ve had constant problems with Batiatus’ establishment. Maybe if you wanted to talk about it, we can make the situation better for everyone involved?” he asked as he looked at her openly. Mira only nodded and followed him to one of the back rooms as he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Duro and Chadara sat on one of the benches, her head falling instantly on his shoulder and their hands intertwining. As he looked at them, Nasir thought he’d never seen Chadara more peaceful. 

Agron came back from behind the desk, two beers in his hand. He offered one to Nasir, opening it with his hand. Nasir took it and drank grateful to have something to wash down the anxiety. Suddenly, he felt exhausted and he wanted nothing more than to lie down in a warm bed and sleep. As he looked at Agron, though, he thought of something he might want to do more.

“Did they never teach you it’s rude to drink when offered without saying ‘Cheers’ first?” Agron asked with a cheeky smile.

Nasir choked on his beer and said sheepishly, “You’re right, that was rude of me”. He reached out to clink his bottle with Agron’s when he saw him smiling like Christmas had just come early. His green eyes shining with mirth, he touched Nasir’s drink saying “Nah, I’m just fucking with you, man”. 

Blushing like a fool Nasir asked incredulously “Do you always make fun of people you just meet?”

Surprised, Agron replied “Only ones that look as good as you” his eyes never leaving Nasir’s. The shorter man took a swig of his beer his gaze dropping down to the floor. It was hard for him to stare too long at Agron, it made him lose grasp of everything going on around him.

“So in one day we meet and we are bonded by such an unforgettable experience?” Agron asked grinning.

“No offence, but I wish we had been bonded under different circumstances,” Nasir said finally risking a glance at Agron. He was leaning on the edge of the desk, lifting the bottle to his lips. Suddenly Nasir was reminded of a beer commercial, a waterfall behind Agron instead of a grey wall and him wearing only swimming trunks, little droplets of moisture falling on his chest. He gulped loudly again.

“That can be arranged,” Agron said seductively standing up. Nasir tensed not knowing if he could take the other man being so close to him. When Agron was so close that he could see the tiny spread of freckles on his forehead, Nasir knew he was doomed. A softer look coming over his eyes, Agron put his fingers under Nasir’s chin and lifted his gaze towards his own. “All joking aside,” he paused only to look deeply into Nasir’s dark eyes, “you can trust me”.

Nasir didn’t falter under the intensity of his feelings towards this man at that moment. He simply smiled gently and allowed himself to be enveloped in the warmest embrace he had ever known.

On the bench, Duro looked to his right and saw his brother and Nasir embracing for the longest time. Gazing down at the hands holding his own he shifted a little making Chadara lift her head and look at him. Her cheeks were wet from crying and without thinking about it, Duro leaned in and kissed first one cheek and then the other wanting to take as much of her grief as he could. Smiling gently up at him, Chadara put her hand in his black dreadlocks and said, “Thank you”. Her eyes roamed all over his features as though wanting to memorize them. “No one has ever done such a thing for me”.  
“Then let us hope no one ever has to again,” he answered his eyes boring into hers. “You’re so beautiful,” he said in awe. She laughed or she would have had to kiss him and she knew that was a bad idea. For once, she felt safe with someone and she didn’t want to fall prey to her physical urges as she usually did. He laughed along as well surprised at his boldness. No one had ever inspired such an immediate attachment in such a short time. They held each other for a while longer not having to say anything because their eyes said it all.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo yeah, I'm a little drunk now and I've used up the whole day to write this fic. Hope you enjoy, it just spilled right out of me.


End file.
